This winter has worn out its welcome, like a houseguest or fresh fish after three days. Still, it lingers. Luckily, there are a couple of things that can help distract us from the cold.
For starters, another reminder: The Library is still accepting submissions for the Undergraduate Research Paper Award. If you've written a good paper in the last couple of semesters that used Library resources, send it on in; you might win a $200 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble.
We aren't all former English majors, either; past winners have included "Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome," "In Search of Identity: ASL Acquisition of Deaf Adults," "Acrylamides Found in Diet: Foods as Carcinogens?" and "Finding Spirituality in Nature." The upshot is that we don't discriminate based on topic; send in what looks good!
You can find more details about submission here.
And on to Thing Number Two: New books. We're sort of in conference season here -- and will be until June -- so things have been fairly quiet as far as librarian activity goes. There's that background hum that means work is happening, but the big stuff is in temporary remission while we all recover from the Big Deal the express computer workstation turned out to be.
Anyway, some of these fellas are on my to-read list for this blog, although I still have yet to work my way through the books listed in the last few new-book posts. I'll get there eventually. In any case, here goes!
The irresistible Henry House
Raised by a large group of women as part of a home-ec experiment, Henry House is the perfect man -- but because of his upbringing, can't reciprocate the affection he gets from his admirers. Lest this sound outlandish, one should bear in mind that there actually were programs that did this sort of thing in the early 20th Century; they'd get orphans or abandoned infants and use them as "practice babies."
To the end of the land
An Israeli woman looks forward to the return of her son from Army service, only to be forestalled by his sudden decision to volunteer for a West Bank excursion. A planned hike with him becomes instead one with his father, a recluse who is still recovering from his treatment as a prisoner during the Yom Kippur War.
Hiroshima: The autobiography of Barefoot Gen
This is a deep look into the life of Nakazawa Keiji, who was six years old when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II. An event which has ever since colored his outlook on Japan, the United States, and the foreign policies of both, the dropping of the bomb also served as the inspiration for Barefoot Gen, the classic graphic novel about Nakazawa's experiences as a survivor of Hiroshima. This book includes excerpts from that graphic novel, as well as other interviews and stories selected from his life.
Triumph of the city: How our greatest invention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and happier
The lengthy subtitle should give you some idea of what the book's about. Lest you scoff and look at the soybean fields around you, remember that over two-thirds of the American population lives in cities, which occupy just 3% of the United States' land area. The author brings together a variety of styles ranging from personal storytelling to empirical research to drive home his point: Cities are good for you.
Longitude
Dava Sobel's made quite the name for herself in the popularization of the history of science. In this book, she discusses the history of longitude and how it came to be measured in a way that would prevent the world's great oceangoing empires from losing huge fortunes at sea. The ability to locate oneself on the globe is essential to navigation, especially when you're in the middle of the Pacific without a jot of dry land for thousands of miles. Interestingly, the solution to this problem evaded both Newton and Galileo, but turned out to require only a well-made clock.
The oracle of Stamboul
In this tale of a city, a young Turkish girl in the late 19th Century -- who happens to be a bit of a prodigy -- stows away on her father's boat as he sails to Stamboul (now known as Istanbul) on business. Because of this little piece of impertinence, she learns a great deal about the city, the people in it, and herself.
Through the language glass
The author explores various languages and how culture can influence -- and be influenced by -- the language you speak. Everything from the perception of color to the gender of water can vary from language to language, and this book goes in-depth on a topic that has been fairly controversial in linguistics and cognitive psychology. Also, if you've heard of the concept of linguistic relativity, you'll appreciate more than a few puns in this book.
I think we've got a pretty nice variety going on here. More are coming in every week; come on by and check one out today!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Some cool news
Spring's arrived, but it's already gone on vacation for a few days. It's cold here!
In order to keep warm without having to burn all the, er, flammable material in the building, we've been keeping busy. There are three major things I'd like to announce this week.
First, it's that time of year again, when we give away a $200 gift card to Barnes & Noble! See the details here.
Second, in response to the survey we distributed a few weeks ago, we are currently piloting an express workstation in the public-computer area on the first floor. It's one of the stand-up computers, directly in front of the Service Desk, and has been marked out with a very attractive sign, if I may say so myself.
This computer will not require a login for use, which was one of the issues we brought up in the survey. Some of our computers are a little older than others, and have had a difficult time coping with the high volume of use, so it can take a while to log in, find a book's call number in the catalog, and log out on their way to class. We've since had Technology Services come in and clean up a little bit, so response times have improved, but things can still get backed up. This way, you can just come in, find what you need, and take off without having to wait for that little spinny hoop to stop twirling.
Since it's intended to speed up some tasks for everyone, we've placed a 15-minute limit on use of the machine. It's not intended for a two-hour marathon paper-writing session; since there should be fewer people monopolizing computers just so they can find a single book, there should be more public computers available for that purpose. We've also decided to disallow printing -- that's something that can take up more time.
As I've said, this is a pilot. Some things may be tweaked and others set in stone. We'll be watching the express station and getting an idea of what real utility a service like this would offer, so if it sounds good to you, I heartily encourage you to use it. If it turns out to be a boon to everyone, we've got further plans in the works.
The third thing I'd like to announce is that we're kicking around the possibility of adding a new e-book vendor to our repertoire. Call this a sneak peek!
It's a bigger deal to us than to you -- you'd see some more e-books in the catalog and they'd look a little different. We're excited, though, because this new vendor, Ebook Library (EBL), doesn't quite stop there in a couple of ways.
First, and most relevant to you, the e-books are downloadable. You can save them on your computer, laptop, or mobile device as Adobe Digital Edition PDFs for a limited period. It's sort of a "Your mission, should you choose to accept it ... " kind of thing, only the explosions are a little quieter. This, I think, is what I'm most excited about. It doesn't work on the Kindle, unfortunately, but I'm inclined to think that the joy of a Kindle is best left unmarred by academic considerations. It does work on the iPad and iPhone, though.
The second thing is more relevant to us than to you: its pricing structure. It works in a way that's new to us and may end up offering a balance between cost and usage that we just haven't seen before. Sorry to be so vague, but the full explanation requires some fairly recondite Librarianese. The upshot is that it's looking pretty good from our end, too.
We're still in the trial phase, so it's not quite available just yet, but the skies are clearing up!
In order to keep warm without having to burn all the, er, flammable material in the building, we've been keeping busy. There are three major things I'd like to announce this week.
First, it's that time of year again, when we give away a $200 gift card to Barnes & Noble! See the details here.
Second, in response to the survey we distributed a few weeks ago, we are currently piloting an express workstation in the public-computer area on the first floor. It's one of the stand-up computers, directly in front of the Service Desk, and has been marked out with a very attractive sign, if I may say so myself.
This computer will not require a login for use, which was one of the issues we brought up in the survey. Some of our computers are a little older than others, and have had a difficult time coping with the high volume of use, so it can take a while to log in, find a book's call number in the catalog, and log out on their way to class. We've since had Technology Services come in and clean up a little bit, so response times have improved, but things can still get backed up. This way, you can just come in, find what you need, and take off without having to wait for that little spinny hoop to stop twirling.
Since it's intended to speed up some tasks for everyone, we've placed a 15-minute limit on use of the machine. It's not intended for a two-hour marathon paper-writing session; since there should be fewer people monopolizing computers just so they can find a single book, there should be more public computers available for that purpose. We've also decided to disallow printing -- that's something that can take up more time.
As I've said, this is a pilot. Some things may be tweaked and others set in stone. We'll be watching the express station and getting an idea of what real utility a service like this would offer, so if it sounds good to you, I heartily encourage you to use it. If it turns out to be a boon to everyone, we've got further plans in the works.
The third thing I'd like to announce is that we're kicking around the possibility of adding a new e-book vendor to our repertoire. Call this a sneak peek!
It's a bigger deal to us than to you -- you'd see some more e-books in the catalog and they'd look a little different. We're excited, though, because this new vendor, Ebook Library (EBL), doesn't quite stop there in a couple of ways.
First, and most relevant to you, the e-books are downloadable. You can save them on your computer, laptop, or mobile device as Adobe Digital Edition PDFs for a limited period. It's sort of a "Your mission, should you choose to accept it ... " kind of thing, only the explosions are a little quieter. This, I think, is what I'm most excited about. It doesn't work on the Kindle, unfortunately, but I'm inclined to think that the joy of a Kindle is best left unmarred by academic considerations. It does work on the iPad and iPhone, though.
The second thing is more relevant to us than to you: its pricing structure. It works in a way that's new to us and may end up offering a balance between cost and usage that we just haven't seen before. Sorry to be so vague, but the full explanation requires some fairly recondite Librarianese. The upshot is that it's looking pretty good from our end, too.
We're still in the trial phase, so it's not quite available just yet, but the skies are clearing up!
Monday, March 21, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Students, computers, and surveys, oh my
First, a little plug: the Academic Bowl is this weekend! It's the first time in the competition's 15-year history that all the magic will happen here on campus, and matches are open to fans! I'm working on it myself, and am looking forward to it.
Now ...
As I've mentioned a few times over the past few weeks, we're looking at different things we may be able to do with the public computer area on the first floor, next to the Service Desk.
To that end, we set up a survey specifically for people who used that area and collected them over the course of 2 weeks. We got close to a hundred responses, which, given various factors, is a pretty good number!
In general, we asked people questions on a couple of different topics:
1) How they used the area, either individually or with others.
2) If crowding was a problem, whether in terms of inadequate computer supply or sheer space for one's bags and stuff, and if an "express station" might help.
We also offered an area where people could add other issues that they'd been having with that area in particular. What we discovered both surprised us and didn't, and it'll inform many of the decisions we make over the next few months. More to come on that front!
In the meantime, I'd like to congratulate the winners of our drawing: Emma Pruitt, Shane Dundas, and Fallon Haney! They each get a nifty little giftcard to enjoy their weekend with, and everyone gets the benefit of their input, along with that of all the terrific students, staff, and faculty who filled out our survey. Our thanks go out to them.
That's it for the time being. Next week promises to be difficult schedule-wise, to say the least, so this blog will go quiet for the next week and a half. Never fear; we shall return!
Now ...
As I've mentioned a few times over the past few weeks, we're looking at different things we may be able to do with the public computer area on the first floor, next to the Service Desk.
To that end, we set up a survey specifically for people who used that area and collected them over the course of 2 weeks. We got close to a hundred responses, which, given various factors, is a pretty good number!
In general, we asked people questions on a couple of different topics:
1) How they used the area, either individually or with others.
2) If crowding was a problem, whether in terms of inadequate computer supply or sheer space for one's bags and stuff, and if an "express station" might help.
We also offered an area where people could add other issues that they'd been having with that area in particular. What we discovered both surprised us and didn't, and it'll inform many of the decisions we make over the next few months. More to come on that front!
In the meantime, I'd like to congratulate the winners of our drawing: Emma Pruitt, Shane Dundas, and Fallon Haney! They each get a nifty little giftcard to enjoy their weekend with, and everyone gets the benefit of their input, along with that of all the terrific students, staff, and faculty who filled out our survey. Our thanks go out to them.
That's it for the time being. Next week promises to be difficult schedule-wise, to say the least, so this blog will go quiet for the next week and a half. Never fear; we shall return!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Coffee and e-books
I promised not too long ago in a vlog far, far away, that I'd write about life with a Kindle.
Before we start, though, a couple of announcements: First, we've got coffee every night this week for midterms! If all the cramming and writing you're doing is getting you down by the time the post-dinner coma hits, come to the Library after 8 p.m. through Thursday night for free coffee! We've got all the amenities: Creamer, sugar, artificial sweetener and, my favorite, stirrers!
Second, our first-floor computer area survey is done. Expect a post later this week about the results -- and the winners of our prize drawing, of course!
Now for the main attraction ...
I bought a Kindle a couple of weeks ago, as I mentioned, after posting this. And I love it.
It's so convenient. It slips right into my coat pocket in case of lousy weather (plenty of which we've had in the last few weeks). The screen is amazing, as is to be expected when you've grown used to cell phones and iPads that are all but unusable outdoors -- it's crisp and readable in nearly all conditions and looks just like a book page. The thing itself manages to pull off the difficult task of being both very book-like and very unlike a book as might be expected. More than anything else, I've had two habits to get over: touching the screen, thanks to the capacitive handhelds I've had over the years; and turning pages. You can actually read one-handed, which is useful in more situations than you'd think, including driving.
Did I say that? Haha! No, I didn't.
By far the most useful aspect of the Kindle, though, is the accessibility I now have to a huge number of public-domain works. This includes a plethora of classics I've never read -- specifically because they were in the public domain. Why pay for a free book? And it's no fun reading those books on a computer screen; your eyes get tired. And as far as checking them out from a library -- even the Gallaudet University Library -- there are so many other options that I grow neglectful of the canon.
Using the Kindle chiefly -- if not exclusively -- for public-domain works also gets around a problem that's endemic to e-reading devices like the Kindle and e-books in general: DRM. Digital rights management enables publishers to maintain control over a copy that you've purchased yourself, simply by including in the terms and conditions that such purchases are understood only as "licensing." In other words, even though money has changed hands, you're still really only renting the object of the transaction.
Libraries all over the country ran headlong into this wall just last week when OverDrive -- a major e-book lender for libraries, mentioned in the post linked above -- announced that an unnamed publisher had altered the licensing terms of books purchased by libraries through OverDrive: there would now be an upper limit on the number of times an e-book from that publisher could be checked out. When a given e-book exceeded the limit (set at 26), that e-book would no longer be available through that library without re-purchasing the license.
More information has since filtered in; HarperCollins acknowledged that it was the publisher in question and explained their reasoning, and also that these terms applied to all e-book lenders carrying HarperCollins titles.
HarperCollins is huge. They're one of the six largest publishers in the US, if not the world. Their books are everywhere; they published, for instance, Sarah Palin's Going Rogue last fall. Can you imagine the effect a 26-loan limit on that book alone would have on a library?
I was talking with Elizabeth Henry, our E-Resources/Instruction & Reference Librarian, last week just after the news came out. I was, predictably, a little steamed -- how dare they? Would they presume to dictate to libraries a limit on how often a physical book can be checked out? Of course not; the first-sale doctrine prevents that.
The first-sale doctrine states that once a legitimate copy of a work has been legally purchased, the seller transfers all rights of ownership of that copy to the buyer. The buyer can then transfer the ownership of that book any way she likes -- sell it, lend it, give it away, whatever. The original seller is not entitled to any further control over, or revenue from, that copy. If, for instance, you found an incredibly rare copy of Kenneth Grahame's Dream Days, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, at a garage sale and bought it for 50 cents, then turned around and sold it for $2,000, the person who sold the book to you isn't entitled to a cut of the money (although if you were a nice person, you might consider a thank-you of some kind to the hapless garage owner).
What? I'm not kidding -- there's a signed first-edition limited run of the book on the market for $1,750. Don't think I haven't thought about it ...
Anyway, the first-sale doctrine is part of the legal underpinning of what libraries do; we let people take books without paying and do God only knows what with them in the privacy of their own homes. Provided we get it back, and there's no physical damage to the book itself as a result of whatever you did with it, there really isn't anything else we can or should do about how the book is used.
Publishers dislike that; they see libraries as enabling people to read, and maybe even copy and distribute, the publishers' product without paying a single red cent for the privilege. And now they've found their way in, as the case of HarperCollins and OverDrive illustrates so well.
Elizabeth agreed with me for the most part, but reminded me that e-books, though not all that new, are only now beginning to become a major part of the publishing industry at large. As such, publishers, vendors, libraries, and individuals are still feeling their way along a very bumpy road.
That made me feel better, a little bit. Some perspective on the issue always helps. What also helps is the knowledge that this particular problem with HarperCollins doesn't apply to us; our collection of e-books doesn't work on the same principle as, say, OverDrive's. So come what may, our collection -- full of fascinating reading like Accidental billionaires or Changing anarchism -- won't be affected by publisher decisions affecting e-book lending.
If you're interested in reading more about what other librarians have to say, I'd suggest starting with the Librarian in Black's e-Book Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying my Kindle, even with Amazon's Big Brother lurking over my shoulder. Expect some "classic" book-review vlogs in the future as I work my way through the free copies of the Library's holdings, starting with Tristram Shandy. Don't worry -- I'll still read new(er) books, like Pillars of the Earth. Expect a vlog about that later this week!
Before we start, though, a couple of announcements: First, we've got coffee every night this week for midterms! If all the cramming and writing you're doing is getting you down by the time the post-dinner coma hits, come to the Library after 8 p.m. through Thursday night for free coffee! We've got all the amenities: Creamer, sugar, artificial sweetener and, my favorite, stirrers!
Second, our first-floor computer area survey is done. Expect a post later this week about the results -- and the winners of our prize drawing, of course!
Now for the main attraction ...
I bought a Kindle a couple of weeks ago, as I mentioned, after posting this. And I love it.
It's so convenient. It slips right into my coat pocket in case of lousy weather (plenty of which we've had in the last few weeks). The screen is amazing, as is to be expected when you've grown used to cell phones and iPads that are all but unusable outdoors -- it's crisp and readable in nearly all conditions and looks just like a book page. The thing itself manages to pull off the difficult task of being both very book-like and very unlike a book as might be expected. More than anything else, I've had two habits to get over: touching the screen, thanks to the capacitive handhelds I've had over the years; and turning pages. You can actually read one-handed, which is useful in more situations than you'd think, including driving.
Did I say that? Haha! No, I didn't.
By far the most useful aspect of the Kindle, though, is the accessibility I now have to a huge number of public-domain works. This includes a plethora of classics I've never read -- specifically because they were in the public domain. Why pay for a free book? And it's no fun reading those books on a computer screen; your eyes get tired. And as far as checking them out from a library -- even the Gallaudet University Library -- there are so many other options that I grow neglectful of the canon.
Using the Kindle chiefly -- if not exclusively -- for public-domain works also gets around a problem that's endemic to e-reading devices like the Kindle and e-books in general: DRM. Digital rights management enables publishers to maintain control over a copy that you've purchased yourself, simply by including in the terms and conditions that such purchases are understood only as "licensing." In other words, even though money has changed hands, you're still really only renting the object of the transaction.
Libraries all over the country ran headlong into this wall just last week when OverDrive -- a major e-book lender for libraries, mentioned in the post linked above -- announced that an unnamed publisher had altered the licensing terms of books purchased by libraries through OverDrive: there would now be an upper limit on the number of times an e-book from that publisher could be checked out. When a given e-book exceeded the limit (set at 26), that e-book would no longer be available through that library without re-purchasing the license.
More information has since filtered in; HarperCollins acknowledged that it was the publisher in question and explained their reasoning, and also that these terms applied to all e-book lenders carrying HarperCollins titles.
HarperCollins is huge. They're one of the six largest publishers in the US, if not the world. Their books are everywhere; they published, for instance, Sarah Palin's Going Rogue last fall. Can you imagine the effect a 26-loan limit on that book alone would have on a library?
I was talking with Elizabeth Henry, our E-Resources/Instruction & Reference Librarian, last week just after the news came out. I was, predictably, a little steamed -- how dare they? Would they presume to dictate to libraries a limit on how often a physical book can be checked out? Of course not; the first-sale doctrine prevents that.
The first-sale doctrine states that once a legitimate copy of a work has been legally purchased, the seller transfers all rights of ownership of that copy to the buyer. The buyer can then transfer the ownership of that book any way she likes -- sell it, lend it, give it away, whatever. The original seller is not entitled to any further control over, or revenue from, that copy. If, for instance, you found an incredibly rare copy of Kenneth Grahame's Dream Days, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, at a garage sale and bought it for 50 cents, then turned around and sold it for $2,000, the person who sold the book to you isn't entitled to a cut of the money (although if you were a nice person, you might consider a thank-you of some kind to the hapless garage owner).
What? I'm not kidding -- there's a signed first-edition limited run of the book on the market for $1,750. Don't think I haven't thought about it ...
Anyway, the first-sale doctrine is part of the legal underpinning of what libraries do; we let people take books without paying and do God only knows what with them in the privacy of their own homes. Provided we get it back, and there's no physical damage to the book itself as a result of whatever you did with it, there really isn't anything else we can or should do about how the book is used.
Publishers dislike that; they see libraries as enabling people to read, and maybe even copy and distribute, the publishers' product without paying a single red cent for the privilege. And now they've found their way in, as the case of HarperCollins and OverDrive illustrates so well.
Elizabeth agreed with me for the most part, but reminded me that e-books, though not all that new, are only now beginning to become a major part of the publishing industry at large. As such, publishers, vendors, libraries, and individuals are still feeling their way along a very bumpy road.
That made me feel better, a little bit. Some perspective on the issue always helps. What also helps is the knowledge that this particular problem with HarperCollins doesn't apply to us; our collection of e-books doesn't work on the same principle as, say, OverDrive's. So come what may, our collection -- full of fascinating reading like Accidental billionaires or Changing anarchism -- won't be affected by publisher decisions affecting e-book lending.
If you're interested in reading more about what other librarians have to say, I'd suggest starting with the Librarian in Black's e-Book Bill of Rights.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying my Kindle, even with Amazon's Big Brother lurking over my shoulder. Expect some "classic" book-review vlogs in the future as I work my way through the free copies of the Library's holdings, starting with Tristram Shandy. Don't worry -- I'll still read new(er) books, like Pillars of the Earth. Expect a vlog about that later this week!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Library computer area survey
As promised a couple of weeks back, we've got a survey for you to fill out!
... If you've ever used our first-floor computer area, near the Service Desk, that is. Time's up -- survey's over!
We're considering making some major changes to that part of the first floor, and we'd really like to know what we should focus on to improve it.
As a sign of our eternal gratitude, we're also offering the chance to enter a drawing! You could win a movie night for two at Regal Cinemas (like the one in Gallery Place/Chinatown, which shows captioned movies) or a $5 gift card to Starbucks. If you like movies and/or coffee, this is something you can do that won't require any effort but might net you some goodness!
To say nothing, of course, of the positive changes in the Library that might come about as a result of your feedback.
We've also got paper surveys available to fill out in the Library itself -- they can be located on the computer tables near the Service Desk, and can be dropped off in the bright yellow box on the Desk next to where the librarian usually sits. Don't worry, none of us are liable to bite (although the younger ones may nip at you). Come on in (or go online) and fill one out today!
And while I'm soliciting your opinions, I'll take this opportunity to remind you that we always welcome your comments. If you have a suggestion for the Library (a book or video for the collection, an idea about the building, a thought about how to improve services), please let us know. We're always looking for ways to make sure your Library experience is the best it can be!
... If you've ever used our first-floor computer area, near the Service Desk, that is. Time's up -- survey's over!
We're considering making some major changes to that part of the first floor, and we'd really like to know what we should focus on to improve it.
As a sign of our eternal gratitude, we're also offering the chance to enter a drawing! You could win a movie night for two at Regal Cinemas (like the one in Gallery Place/Chinatown, which shows captioned movies) or a $5 gift card to Starbucks. If you like movies and/or coffee, this is something you can do that won't require any effort but might net you some goodness!
To say nothing, of course, of the positive changes in the Library that might come about as a result of your feedback.
We've also got paper surveys available to fill out in the Library itself -- they can be located on the computer tables near the Service Desk, and can be dropped off in the bright yellow box on the Desk next to where the librarian usually sits. Don't worry, none of us are liable to bite (although the younger ones may nip at you). Come on in (or go online) and fill one out today!
And while I'm soliciting your opinions, I'll take this opportunity to remind you that we always welcome your comments. If you have a suggestion for the Library (a book or video for the collection, an idea about the building, a thought about how to improve services), please let us know. We're always looking for ways to make sure your Library experience is the best it can be!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Thoughts on e-books
No vlog this week -- it has been pretty busy! I'm also in the middle of a great book, and I'd like to finish it before I post anything more about it.
In the meantime, I thought I'd pull something similar to what I did a couple of weeks ago in my TED post, where I talk about something that's not necessarily related to the Library itself, but to librarianship in general.
It's not that there's nothing going on in the Library. Quite the opposite, actually -- big things are happening, as my last post soliciting feedback on the computer area kind of hints. The trouble is, those big things are not yet definite enough to unveil to the general public. Give it another few weeks.
Now, back to this week. I've been thinking a lot about e-books lately, mostly because I'm looking at the newest Kindle and thinking very hard.
Funnily enough, people tend to assume that I'm virulently opposed to e-books, either because I'm a librarian, a hard-core reader, or both. It's as though the concept of a print book and an electronic book are mutually repellent and work like a pair of magnets with their positive poles facing each other.
In practice, things don't work out that way. We have around 220,000 print books in the collection, and another 20 or 30,000 electronic books. Miraculously, the dissolution of the building has maintained the same steady pace it has for the past three decades, rather than flying apart in the force of the reaction resulting from the enlargement of our e-book collection.
Librarians in general tend to be realists. We see the writing on the wall very clearly and are working to anticipate emergent trends in how our collection is used. This does not necessarily mean that we will eventually be buying nothing but electronic books; the general consensus in Library World is that print books will likely not be disappearing any time soon, if ever. Why? Check out my ALA report post from last July; a good summary of current thinking can be found in the Strategic future of print collections section.
So print books aren't going away. Why am I looking at Kindles?
The truth is, I'm a large-volume reader, which is kind of a pun, because a) I read a large volume of books, often simultaneously, and b) a lot of the books I like to read are, in fact, large volumes. As in, they're big. I picked up our copy of Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett last week because a friend of mine enthusiastically recommended it, and got into it right away. However, I found myself frustrated by a couple of things. First, the book was falling apart, for two obvious reasons: Use and size. Larger books have shorter usable lives and when they're used quite a bit, as Pillars has been -- it's been checked out 53 times since we got it, a pretty high number for the subject matter -- they fall apart faster. The bookbinding technique most commonly employed these days relies a lot on glue, and it simply isn't strong enough to support books larger than, say, 500 pages after a certain period of time. Pillars is 973 pages long.
The second thing that frustrated me about Pillars is that nearly all of my daily reading takes place outside my home, whether on the Metro or in the local coffee franchise, and Pillars is far from portable. The experience suffered so much that I gave up less than 10 pages in. This I find tragic.
Then I thought a little bit more. Getting an e-book reader negates nearly everything negative about my encounter with Pillars of the Earth, and also displays a net positive: No trees have to die for another 973-page copy to be printed, fall apart in 10 years, and discarded. The same is true with all of the other larger books I've read since I started working at the Gallaudet University Library, up to and including Stephen King's Under the Dome.
"But what about the Library?" you ask. "If Gallaudet's copy is falling apart, are you going to get another one? Will it be print or electronic?"
The answer's easy: Yes, and it will be print. The book's simply been used too much; it would be penalizing success if we were to remove it from the collection altogether, and it's a good book besides. And although we can't do anything about the size of the book -- it's just the way things are -- the environmental argument is answered quite handily by the book's circulation numbers; that's 53 copies that weren't bought, worn out, and discarded because ours took that bullet.
It won't be electronic, though; although that would be nice, our e-books aren't very ideal for leisure reading. They're adequate for research purposes (albeit limited and a tad annoying to use -- see e-Books: How do they work?), but nobody wants to stare at their computer screen for an intensive reading session that's supposed to be fun.
There are other options for libraries, of course; OverDrive is a popular platform that lets libraries "lend" e-book copies that can be read on readers like the Nook and Sony's line of eReaders, for instance. It sounds fantastic, but although they support a huge range of e-reading products up to and including MP3 players (for audiobooks), they don't support the Amazon Kindle. This is simply incredible, given that the Kindle is one of the most popular e-book readers out there, bar none. I know more Kindle users on campus than I do for the iPad. There are a number of reasons why something like this happens, up to and including Amazon's habit of digitally-protecting their content so it can't be read on anything other than something that runs Kindle software (again, refer to e-book post linked above), but it does illustrate a basic problem: platform support.
Although eBrary (and our other e-book providers) isn't perfect, it works on all Internet-connected desktop and laptop computers, and those, at least, are ubiquitous.
There's also an upside for Library users, if I get a Kindle: I may use it to read my own copies of new Library books, freeing those new books up for you to check out! Something to think about ...
Until next week, anyway, when I'll be back with a vlog. This one'll be good!
In the meantime, I thought I'd pull something similar to what I did a couple of weeks ago in my TED post, where I talk about something that's not necessarily related to the Library itself, but to librarianship in general.
It's not that there's nothing going on in the Library. Quite the opposite, actually -- big things are happening, as my last post soliciting feedback on the computer area kind of hints. The trouble is, those big things are not yet definite enough to unveil to the general public. Give it another few weeks.
Now, back to this week. I've been thinking a lot about e-books lately, mostly because I'm looking at the newest Kindle and thinking very hard.
Funnily enough, people tend to assume that I'm virulently opposed to e-books, either because I'm a librarian, a hard-core reader, or both. It's as though the concept of a print book and an electronic book are mutually repellent and work like a pair of magnets with their positive poles facing each other.
In practice, things don't work out that way. We have around 220,000 print books in the collection, and another 20 or 30,000 electronic books. Miraculously, the dissolution of the building has maintained the same steady pace it has for the past three decades, rather than flying apart in the force of the reaction resulting from the enlargement of our e-book collection.
Librarians in general tend to be realists. We see the writing on the wall very clearly and are working to anticipate emergent trends in how our collection is used. This does not necessarily mean that we will eventually be buying nothing but electronic books; the general consensus in Library World is that print books will likely not be disappearing any time soon, if ever. Why? Check out my ALA report post from last July; a good summary of current thinking can be found in the Strategic future of print collections section.
So print books aren't going away. Why am I looking at Kindles?
The truth is, I'm a large-volume reader, which is kind of a pun, because a) I read a large volume of books, often simultaneously, and b) a lot of the books I like to read are, in fact, large volumes. As in, they're big. I picked up our copy of Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett last week because a friend of mine enthusiastically recommended it, and got into it right away. However, I found myself frustrated by a couple of things. First, the book was falling apart, for two obvious reasons: Use and size. Larger books have shorter usable lives and when they're used quite a bit, as Pillars has been -- it's been checked out 53 times since we got it, a pretty high number for the subject matter -- they fall apart faster. The bookbinding technique most commonly employed these days relies a lot on glue, and it simply isn't strong enough to support books larger than, say, 500 pages after a certain period of time. Pillars is 973 pages long.
The second thing that frustrated me about Pillars is that nearly all of my daily reading takes place outside my home, whether on the Metro or in the local coffee franchise, and Pillars is far from portable. The experience suffered so much that I gave up less than 10 pages in. This I find tragic.
Then I thought a little bit more. Getting an e-book reader negates nearly everything negative about my encounter with Pillars of the Earth, and also displays a net positive: No trees have to die for another 973-page copy to be printed, fall apart in 10 years, and discarded. The same is true with all of the other larger books I've read since I started working at the Gallaudet University Library, up to and including Stephen King's Under the Dome.
"But what about the Library?" you ask. "If Gallaudet's copy is falling apart, are you going to get another one? Will it be print or electronic?"
The answer's easy: Yes, and it will be print. The book's simply been used too much; it would be penalizing success if we were to remove it from the collection altogether, and it's a good book besides. And although we can't do anything about the size of the book -- it's just the way things are -- the environmental argument is answered quite handily by the book's circulation numbers; that's 53 copies that weren't bought, worn out, and discarded because ours took that bullet.
It won't be electronic, though; although that would be nice, our e-books aren't very ideal for leisure reading. They're adequate for research purposes (albeit limited and a tad annoying to use -- see e-Books: How do they work?), but nobody wants to stare at their computer screen for an intensive reading session that's supposed to be fun.
There are other options for libraries, of course; OverDrive is a popular platform that lets libraries "lend" e-book copies that can be read on readers like the Nook and Sony's line of eReaders, for instance. It sounds fantastic, but although they support a huge range of e-reading products up to and including MP3 players (for audiobooks), they don't support the Amazon Kindle. This is simply incredible, given that the Kindle is one of the most popular e-book readers out there, bar none. I know more Kindle users on campus than I do for the iPad. There are a number of reasons why something like this happens, up to and including Amazon's habit of digitally-protecting their content so it can't be read on anything other than something that runs Kindle software (again, refer to e-book post linked above), but it does illustrate a basic problem: platform support.
Although eBrary (and our other e-book providers) isn't perfect, it works on all Internet-connected desktop and laptop computers, and those, at least, are ubiquitous.
There's also an upside for Library users, if I get a Kindle: I may use it to read my own copies of new Library books, freeing those new books up for you to check out! Something to think about ...
Until next week, anyway, when I'll be back with a vlog. This one'll be good!
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